Columns, pieces and posts
It has long been my bitter hunch that the man I can’t help think of as the last monster of the 20th century, Fidel Castro, creator and warden of the floating prison to our south, would die of old age in a big brass bed, a snifter of brandy in one hand and a good […]
Why does President Bush refer in public to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as “Condi”? Did Dwight Eisenhower call his Secretary of State “Johnny”? Did Jimmy Carter call his “Eddie,” or Bill Clinton call his “Maddy,” or Richard Nixon call his “Willie” or “Hank”? What are the implications of such informality? I know it is […]
During the past week’s heat wave—it hit 100 degrees in New York City Monday—I got thinking, again, of how sad and frustrating it is that the world’s greatest scientists cannot gather, discuss the question of global warming, pore over all the data from every angle, study meteorological patterns and temperature histories, and come to a […]
I am thinking about the huge and crushing number of issues we force politicians to understand and make decisions on. These are issues of great variety, complexity, and even in some cases, many cases in a way, unknowability. All of us, as good citizens, feel that we must know something about them, study them, come […]
All deaths are sad, and some are shocking and sad. Ken Lay’s this week was both, though I don’t suppose it should have been a shock. Putting aside all judgments and conclusions, all umbrage, outrage and indignation, and all debates on who was most responsible for the Enron scandal—putting all those weighty and legitimate concerns […]
Today I would like to depart from what I perceive as the common wisdom on several people and issues. Hillary Clinton. Media people keep saying, as Hillary gears up for her presidential bid, that her big challenge in 2008 will be to prove that she is as tough as a man. That she could order […]
It has occurred to me that both parties increasingly dislike their bases, but for different reasons and to different degrees. By both parties I mean the leaders and representatives of the Democrats and Republicans in Washington. I believe I correctly observe that they feel an increasing intellectual estrangement from and impatience with the activists who […]
The Democratic Party is that amazing thing, out of power for six years and yet exhausted. They’re pale, tired and unready. Too bad, since it’s their job to be an alternative, not an embarrassment. This week Democratic members of Congress and other elected officials unveil their ‘New Direction for America,’ the party’s declaration of its […]
A thought today about complexity and politics. The American people right now are not in a mood to trust any political plan, proposal or policy that seems complicated—highly involved, technical, full of phased-in elements and glide paths and Part C’s. They are against complexity not because they don’t think life is complex. They know it’s […]
Something’s happening. I have a feeling we’re at some new beginning, that a big breakup’s coming, and that though it isn’t and will not be immediately apparent, we’ll someday look back on this era as the time when a shift began. All my adult life, people have been saying that the two-party system is ending, […]